The quiet part outloud

Short and sharp this week because we talked about robots for too long.

A new survey of 1000 One Nation supporters uncovered some, shall we say, interesting insights. 

Apparently, 91% believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, which begs the question, who are the 90 people who think things are going great but Pauline Hanson is an improvement?

The research also found that immigration is the top concern of these voters, beating out cost of living by four reasonably comfortable percentage points.

Quelle surprise. It’s often at this point that commentators point to how everything intersects, and that migration impacts housing, prices, and more. But wait. Because the survey then asked respondents what they feared about immigration.

Here, “Australia’s culture and identity were changing too quickly” (57%) was miles ahead of the next most popular reason (strain on housing and infrastructure, at 40%).

This is the quiet part outloud. 

Forget competition for housing or jobs. This is, plainly and clearly, about where someone is from, what they look like, and how they choose to live their lives. And no amount of carefully calibrated targets or delayed Press Club speeches is going to overcome that. It’s a much bigger problem.